Something Out Of A Fairy Tale
by Aki Madoka
Summary: Haru's common sense is telling him he's having a fever-induced hallucination when he sees characters from his favorite anime in his game room. What'll happen?


Haru, are you ready for school?"

"Yeah, I'm coming!" calls back Haru, a brown haired teen with equally brown eyes, walking down the dimly lit open hallway and down the narrow staircase. At the bottom, he treks through the wide, sunlit living room to the front door.

The smell of today's breakfast still lingered in the air. Despite not having much appetite in the morning, Haru always enjoyed waking up to the smell of breakfast food. Except of course eggs.

Haru wrinkles his nose. _'Yuck.'_

Meeting his family at the door, he hugs them goodbye as his folks leave for work before heading out himself into the crisp morning air, his younger sister Nagisa following behind him. Walking across the lawn of morning dew moist grass, Haru heads to the sidewalk.

Behind him, Nagisa races to her bike to catch up with her friends racing by.

The fifteen year old smiles slightly upon seeing his friends, the smile widening as he approaches them.

"Good morning Haru, and how are you this morning?" greets Gabriel Collins, a bright red haired young man with eyes a deep shade of ocean blue.

"Morning Gabby. I'm good, you?" Haru returns.

"I'm alright," Gabby answers.

"S'up?" questions Eric Davis, a monotonous brunette young man with bright emerald green eyes.

"Not much," Haru shrugs. "You?"

"Eh," Eric grunts.

Elizabeth Brice, a younger teen girl with black hair and dark blue eyes, waves timidly in greeting.

"Hey Bonnie." Haru grins, leaving Bonnie looking shyly to her feet.

"C'mere you!" beams Rica Martin, a young woman with caramel brown hair and matching brown eyes, demanding her morning hug. Which she receives affectionately.

The five friends began the walk to school together, heading down the familiar streets of their hometown.

"So what's on today's agenda?" asks Gabby, glancing at everyone curiously.

Eric folds his hands behind his head, looking bored. "Same old same old. Being bored out of my skull and falling asleep in class, getting into fights, the works."

"Eric," Rica clips, disapproving of Eric's nonchalant attitude about getting in trouble.

Haru can only shake his head as the two quarrel. Gabby having to play referee, as usual.

The group breaks off into their own conversations after the bickering stops to avoid incurring the wrath of an aggravated Gabby. Rica chats with Bonnie, Gabby chipping in every now and then while keeping up his own conversation with Eric. Haru simply listens, enjoying the active chatter without joining in, glancing to the street as Nagisa and her friends race their bikes to see who can get to school first with bemusement.

As the group makes it inside the old school building, they exchange their goodbyes before heading to classes to beat the crowds at bell. Before he can get far, Haru begins to feel lightheaded. The room began to spin and black spotting his vision.

"Haru!"

The voice is too muffled to recognize, Haru's ears feeling like they're stuffed with cotton. The white tiled floor at his feet rushes to meet him, Haru's world goes black.

When Haru comes around again, the first thing Haru notices is the feeling of movement under him. Brown eyes flutter open, blinking a few times to adjust to the bright sunlight. Immediately Haru recognizes the dark leather of Rica's jacket and the smell of her vanilla strawberry scented shampooed hair tickling his nose. Slightly lifting his head from where it lay on what he assumes to be Rica's shoulder, Haru looks around to see Gabby and Eric with them.

The first to notice Haru awake is Eric, "Hey, look who's up."

Gabby rubs Haru's back. "How are you feeling kiddo?"

"I'm okay..." Haru replies weakly, still fatigued.

Rica looks to Haru over her shoulder. "Let's get you home."

"Sounds good..." Haru sighs, closing his eyes as he rests his head against Rica's back.

After a bit longer of walking, the group makes it to Haru's house. His folks are working late at the hospital tonight and Nagisa will be home late from hanging out with friends since it's friday, so Haru has the house to himself for a few hours.

"You sure you'll be ok on your own Haru?" Gabby questions worriedly as Rica heads to the door, "You were out all day."

"I'll be fine Gabby. I'm not gonna be moving around a whole lot, Nagisa will be home later and if there's an emergency I have the panic button."

Gabby nods, albeit reluctantly, and continues to walk down the road alongside Eric.

Heading inside the house, Rica sets Haru down on a bench by the door. Sitting next to him, Rica takes off her black platform boots and jacket. Beside her, Haru kicks off his sneakers. With that done, Rica scoops Haru into her arms bridal style, letting Haru rest his head on her shoulder.

Since they don't have far to go, it's faster to carry him this way. Haru appreciates the ride, his legs still feel like jelly. Heading through the living room, Rica carries Haru upstairs and down the hall to his room.

Laying Haru on the bed, Rica goes to the closet and grabs Haru's PJs, a simple pair of sweats and a baggy T-shirt. Tossing the clothes to him, Rica leaves him to change. A few minutes later, Rica comes back in. Haru now in his fresh clothes, barefoot as he doesn't need his socks. Scooping him up bridal style again, Rica heads back downstairs to the game room in the basement.

When Haru gets like this, he's left bedridden. But because he hates being cooped up in his bedroom, his parents decided on a compromise that he'd sleep on the couch in the game room so he could hang out while immobile.

Setting Haru on the plush green couch, Rica sits in front of it and turns on T.V. Haru's stomach rings the dinner bell before too long, he was out most of the day after all. Heading to the kitchen, Rica grabs some curry out of the fridge and warms it up for the two of them.

After cleaning up, Rica heads home herself. She can't spend the night, she's got the night shift. And with rent to pay, she can't afford to slack off. With a quick goodbye and promise to talk tomorrow she's off. With a filling dinner on his stomach, Haru falls asleep fast.

Hours later, Haru is lightly roused by the sound of static. Blinking, the teen yawns, looking for the source of the sound. Turning onto his side, Haru finds his culprit; the TV was freaking out. Pinning it on the TV being left on, he makes himself comfortable on the soft cushions of the couch.

_'It'll shut off by itself soon enough.'_ Haru figures sleepily, _'TVs do it all the time.'_

Pulling his TMNT themed comforter over himself, tucking it in just below his nose. Haru shuts his eyes while yawning drowsily, nuzzling his face into the thick and fluffy pillow under his head. There's a flash, making Haru jerk awake. Sitting up, Haru throws his blankets to his feet. Before Haru can dive for cover from what he assumed to be an explosion, something heavy landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of him.

In a panic, Haru crawls out from under the weight, falling to the floor head first in a tuck and roll. Landing on his back, Haru stumbles to his feet and books it up the stairs. Closing the door behind him, Haru leans on it. Breathing heavily, Haru lets himself slide down to sit on the tile floor. His heart pounding a mile a minute, physically trembling from the adrenaline and so dizzy from standing up too fast he might have another fainting spell.

After sitting there for what felt like forever, Haru is able to calm his breathing so he can think clearly and focus his blurred vision. That had to be an explosion, and yet he hadn't smelled smoke, heard the crackle of fire or felt heat. Haru feels himself up and down, no burns either. Something isn't right.

Pushing himself slowly to his feet, Haru gathers up his courage and checks the door, the metal of the door knob is cold. Haru slowly opens the door and listens carefully. He hears nothing. He checks the air, still no smoke. Cautiously, Haru goes down the steps, careful not to make a sound. For whatever the reason, Haru shuttered at the thought of breaking the eerie silence. There is no fire, but something weird happened down there just now, and he needs to find out what.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Haru strains his ears for a sound. There's only dead silence and the pounding of his own heart pounding in his ears. With a deep breath Haru steps out of the doorway. Haru looks around, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. Everything is in its place and there's no sign anything happened. Granted, it's pitch black now that the TV is off, but Haru's eyes are adjusting to the dark.

Stepping up to the back of the couch, Haru cranes his neck to see just what in the world fell on him earlier. Haru blinks a few times, still not able to see well in the dark just yet.

Haru's eyes go wide in shock. Backing away hurriedly, he hits a wall before sliding down to sit on the concrete floor.

Haru's vision blurs again as he feels a spell coming on again out of pure panic at the impossibility, but he brushes it off with a shake of his head. He knows what he saw, but he isn't sure he believes it. Are the characters from the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime really sprawled out on his game room floor and nap couch?

He doesn't have time to worry about that now, though. All he knows now is that a bunch of teenagers, anime characters or not, are unconscious and need his help. They could be hurt or worse. Sure, they're strangers in his house, but it's pretty obvious they weren't here of their own volition.

Pushing himself to his feet for the second time that night, Haru inhales a calming breath before releasing it slowly.

_'Okay, first thing to do is to check for injuries and make sure they're breathing.'_ Haru rationalizes, letting his doctor tutored instincts kick into overdrive.

Marching around the couch, Haru kneels to the teen closest to him on the floor. The teen appears to be Aster Phoenix. He's on his side, hair covering part of his face.

Putting two fingers to Aster's neck, Haru checks for a pulse. Finding one, Haru moves his fingers to hover under Aster's nose. Feeling the warm air of Aster's breathing on them, he moves his fingers away. Haru then looks him over, gently patting him down to check for injuries.

Nothing.

Though it's concerning that Aster didn't wake up from Haru's actions, his life doesn't appear to be in danger. There's no blood and nothing felt out of the ordinary, so there's nothing Haru can do for him right now.

Careful not to disturb him, Haru gently pushes Aster's hair out of his face, tucking it gently behind his ear. Standing, being careful not to bump Aster, Haru moves on to the next person.

That person looks to be Atticus Rhodes laying on his stomach, head turned to face Haru. Putting two fingers against Atticus' neck Haru feels for a pulse. Finding one, Haru makes sure he's breathing. Finding nothing wrong there, Haru checks him for injuries best he can, having more difficulty this time due to the older boy's position, but still finds nothing.

Haru repeats this process several more times, each becoming more difficult due to the close proximity of the group. The next ones had been Chazz, Hassleberry, Syrus, Axel, Zane, Jesse, Jaden and Jim respectively. It was with Jim that Haru found Shirley the crocodile present. But thankfully, she was out cold the same as everyone else.

When he'd first come up to the couch, Haru had found Alexis had been what landed on him before.

_'Who,'_ Haru corrects himself.

Signs of Haru's presence under her are evident. Alexis' hair is sprawled more than it should be, her arms in awkward positions, her shirt slid up, leaving the skin of her belly exposed to the material of the couch and the small of her back in Haru's view. And her skirt... Haru's cheeks become hot as he quickly looks away.

'Welp, that was embarrassing.'

Careful not to look at -or accidentally touch- anything, he cautiously reaches and pulls the hem of Alexis' skirt to a more modest length. After checking her best he can, Haru maneuvers around the unconscious bodies with utmost caution, not wanting to step on or kick anyone.

Making it to safety, Haru lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His first task complete, Haru racks his brain for an idea of what to do next. None of them seem to be injured, but they aren't in a good place, and those positions don't look comfortable. However, Haru is still reluctant to move them, especially by himself. If they have spinal or internal injuries he isn't capable of finding, Haru could seriously hurt them or worse. Plus if they woke up while he's moving them... it wouldn't end well.

Haru realizes he'll have to get help if he wants to try moving them while they're unconscious. But what help can he get?

Calling an ambulance is out, there'd be too many questions and no answers he could give without sounding insane or making them look bad.

If he calls Eric or Gabby, things would get real interesting real quick to say the least. Rica's at work and would flip out if she found out strangers were in the house anyway, so she's a no. Bonnie wouldn't be able to help even if she could get here at this hour, which she couldn't. His Mom and Dad are out of the question, they'd be worse than all the other options combined.

And that brought Haru back to the drawing board as it were.

Haru sighs, he'll have to leave them be and let them wake up before doing much else.

_'At least things can't get any more complicated.'_


End file.
